Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace
Annual Compliance Report 2009
(1 April 2008 to 31 March 2009)
The University of Western Australia
Equity and Diversity
December 2009
- 1 -
CONTENTS
Page
I. EXPLANATORY NOTES 1
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2
III. UWA GENDER DATA
1. Academic Staff by Function, Classification and Distribution 2004-2009 5
Table 1a. Academic Staff by Function & Classification
Table 1b. Academic Staff Equity Index
Figure 1. Equity Index Academic Staff
2. Professional Staff by Function, Classification and Distribution 2004-2009 7
Table 2a. Professional Staff by Function & Classification
Table 2b. Professional Staff Equity Index
Figure 2. Equity Index Professional Staff
3. Staff by Classification, Appointment Type and Appointment Status 2004-2009 9
Table 3. Staff by Function, Appointment Type and Appointment Status
Figure 3a. Academic Females by Employment Status
Figure 3b. Academic Males by Employment Status
4. New Appointments and Separations 2009 12
Table 4a. New Appointments and Separations for Academic Staff
Table 4b. New Appointments and Separations for Professional Staff
5. Staff by Function, Classification and Age 2009 14
Table 5a. Academic Staff by Classification and Age
Table 5b. Professional Staff by Classification and Age
Figure 4a. Teaching & Research Academic Staff Age Cohorts
Figure 4b. Research Academic Staff Age Cohorts
Figure 4c. Professional Staff Age Cohorts
6. Academic Staff Promotion 2004-2008 18
Table 6. Academic Staff Promotion Application and Success (Including Accelerated Promotion) Jan-Dec 2004-2008
Figure 5a. Female Application & Success Rates for the Years 2004-2008
Figure 5b. Male Application & Success Rates for the Years 2004-2008
7. UWA Leadership Roles by Gender 2009 21
Table 7. Faculty Leadership Roles by Gender
Figure 6. UWA Management Structure Tiers 1-4
I. EXPLANATORY NOTES
1. All data is ‘According to Gender’.
2. Data is for the period 1 April 2008-31 March 2009. 31 March is the University’s annual ‘census date’. Data in Table 7: ‘Academic Staff Promotion Application and Success’ is for the calendar year 2008.
3. All data excludes casual staff.
4. DEFINITIONS
Employment Type / Academic or ProfessionalFunction / Academic Teaching & Research, Research Intensive ,Teaching Intensive, Other Professional Mainstream Professional, Research Intensive
Classification / Academic DVC/PVC; Levels A-E
Professional < HEW 1 – > HEW 10
Appointment Type / Ongoing or Fixed Term
Appointment Status / Full Time or Part Time
5. Academic Classifications
Function & Level / Teaching & Research / Other / Research Intensive / Teaching IntensiveLevel A / Lecturer / Research Associate / Lecturer
Level B / Assistant Professor / Research Assistant Professor / Assistant Professor
Level C / Associate Professor / Research Associate Professor / Associate Professor
Level D / Professor / Research Professor / Professor
Level E / Winthrop Professor / Research Winthrop Professor / Winthrop Professor
DVC/PVC / Deputy/Pro Vice-Chancellor
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Introduction
The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace (EOWA) Compliance Report for 2009 has undergone a number of changes in the selection and presentation of the gender equity data it presents. The intent is to not only report on the progression of gender equity at the University as is our legislative requirement, but also to foreground major challenges which persistently inhibit the achievement of full gender equity at UWA.
A recent study of gender equity in Australian universities shows that there is much to be concerned about with regard to gender equity in the higher education sector. Despite the proactive approach taken by universities in implementing gender equity policies and initiatives, the study argues that not only is the rate of actual change extraordinarily slow and uneven:
The rapid and far-reaching trend to business-like forms of organisation in universities, the promotion of individualised reward systems, escalating performance measurement systems and increasing work intensity have profoundly changed universities as workplaces, with all indications being that full attainment of gender equity is less likely than in was a decade ago.[1]
EOWA’s own 2005 ‘Industry Verticals – Education’ report, lists the a number of key factors that continue to contribute to the gender imbalance of the Australian higher education sector. These include:
· The under-representation of women in higher classification levels, management and executive positions;
· the slow progression of women into those senior classification levels and management;
· the concentration of women into lower classifications;
· the lower retention of women;
· the disproportionate numbers of women in fixed term, part-time and casual positions;
· a possible reduction in pay equity for women; and,
· work intensification.[2]
DEST figures too highlight the difficulties of achieving gender equity within Australian universities. National figures show that at 46% and 54% respectively in Level A, and 51% and 49% at Level B, proportions of men and women are equitable in the lower ranks of the academic hierarchy. While the proportion of women at Level C has increased to just over one third, women are yet to reach the Professoriate in any substantial numbers without some form of major intervention. In the Research Intensive category, women are almost entirely absent from the senior levels of academic research, and are predominantly employed on fixed term contracts.
In addition to the persistence of gender imbalance in the Australian higher education sector, the research into Australian university demographic workforce trends shows that the sector is facing a crisis in academic staffing. Australian universities are characterised by ‘age heaping’, with a significant proportion of academic staff concentrated in the older age groups. Consequently, 20-33% of academics are due to retire over the next ten years, leaving universities the task of large-scale recruitment in a highly competitive international market.
The existing international skill shortage has already had an effect on Australian universities, with the drain of potential and existing Australian academics to positions overseas. The impending skill loss due to large numbers of retiring academics and the attraction of working internationally for early and mid-career academics, means that Australian universities now need to recruit enough talented academic staff to fill the shortfall left behind. Attraction strategies are not enough in this climate. The key issue here is one of retention, and the retention of female staff is essential if universities are to remain internationally competitive.
The age profile of UWA’s workforce shows the same concentration of academic staff in the older age groups: in 2009, 21.3% of academic staff were over 55. While this figure is at the low end of the expected retirement rate and, with healthy, equitable numbers of male and female academic staff at Levels A and B, UWA is well positioned to minimise any staff shortages through the development of effective retention strategies which address issues of gender equity.
Note on Changes to the Report
The 2009 EOWA Compliance Report can be seen as a companion to the UWA Pay Equity Report for 2008, presented to the Vice-Chancellor’s Equity and Diversity Advisory Committee in February 2009. To avoid duplicating material so comprehensively covered in the Pay Equity Report, data and discussion around both pay equity and discretionary allowances have been omitted from this Compliance Report. Instead of presenting the full range of data collected for the annual EOWA Compliance Report, the data sets in the 2009 Report have been selected with the aim of highlighting the main challenges still facing the achievement of gender equity at UWA. This has necessitated the removal of some smaller data sets to allow for the introduction of new data sets and/or new configurations of data traditionally included in the Report. Other key changes include the introduction of numbers of male as well as female staff in all the data sets, in order to more clearly reveal sites of privilege, as well of those of disadvantage and progression.
The breakdown of academic staff data is now in line with DEEWR’s four academic functions. The ‘Other’ and ‘Teaching Intensive’ functions were introduced into the sector in 2007, following DEEWR’s revision of their definition of ‘research-active’. In particular, the ‘Other’ category allows for academic staff predominantly engaged in non-Faculty leadership roles, higher education development and key University projects, to have a reduced requirement to publish without penalty to the University. These new categories are reflected in the UWA 2009 gender equity data and have a small anomalous effect where data is compared with previous years.
The classification descriptions of academic levels has changed to align the UWA nonclemanture with our North American and Asian counterparts. While the tables only show the levels A to E grouped according to their function, the individual titles these represent are listed in the Explanatory Notes in the preface to this Report. Definitions are also provided for the terminology used in the data tables.
Key UWA Indicators
The overall representation (%) and distribution (Equity Index scores) of female academic staff employed at the University of Western Australia has continued to increase in a positive direction. Women now comprise 39.3% of all academic staff, an improvement of 14.3% over the nine years since the 25% representation noted in 2000.
The percentage of women in the category of Teaching and Research staff has also increased, with a peak of 36.4% women reported in 2008. Representation slipped slightly to 34.8% in this reporting period, but the removal of 65 staff from this category to the new Teaching Intensive and Other functions has had a small effect on the total (35.9% including these staff). Women are still hovering around 40% representation at Level C, and now comprise a quarter of Level D (24.9%), a substantial increase from 13.7% in 2004. Teaching and Research positions at Levels A and B are fairly equitably distributed between male and female staff, with female representation at a healthy 54.5% in Level A, and 49.8% at Level B.
The pattern of decreasing numbers of female Teaching and Research staff as they progress through the academic ranks remains a cause for concern, with the most substantial attrition occurring between Level C and Level D (from 39.6% to 24.9%). In 2009, female representation decreased from 54.5% at Level A to 16.7% at Level E. In contrast, male representation increases in the movement upwards: from 45.5% at Level A to 83.3% at Level E.
The percentage of Female Research Intensive staff remains fairly static at 45.5%, showing little overall change since 2004 (45.7%). Representation at Level B in this category (47.5%) has continued to decrease slightly over the last five years, down to 47.5% from 50.4% in 2004. In contrast, representation at Levels C and D has increased, with Level D now at 34.6%, showing a marked improvement from the 21.7% reported in 2004. Women are still having difficulty attaining the most senior positions in this category, where men comprise 95.7% of staff at Level E. This trend is consistent with national data which shows a marked absence of senior women researchers across the whole sector.
Professional women staff currently comprise 66% of all staff at UWA. Growth in female Mainstream Professional staff numbers has been slight, up from 62.5% in 2004 to 64.8% in 2009. Women now comprise the majority at every level of the professional staffing stream except for the highest (Levels 10 and 10+) and the lowest (Level 1). %. The high concentration of women in the lower to middle classification levels is a persistent factor contributing to the gender imbalance of the professional staffing stream.
Men’s predominance at Levels 10 and 10+ also needs to be monitored since it is this over representation at the higher levels that accounts for the professional staff Equity Index scores (measures of distribution). Although women comprise 64.8% of the professional staff, their EI score is only 88 indicating an over representation of women into lower classification levels. The male EI score for professional staff is 126 indicating that these 35.2% of staff are over represented at the more senior classification levels. An EI score of 100 indicates equitable distribution of staff.
There has been an increase in the representation of women in the most senior level of professional staff (HEW 10 and above) since the last reporting period (45% in 2009 from 41.9% in 2008), and a healthy increase from the 2004 representation of only 33.3%.
Women comprise 60% of academic staff promoted from Level A to Level B, and exactly half of academic staff promoted from Level B to Level C. After a spike at 44% in 2006, the percentage of academic women gaining promotion has settled back to 39%, offering a smaller rise, but one that is consistent with earlier reporting periods.
Overall application success rates for female academics remain similar to, or higher than, those for male academics. Despite reasonable gender parity in promotion through the lower levels of the academic ranks, there has been a decrease in the percentage of women achieving successful promotion at the higher levels (25% in this reporting period, compared to 36% in 2006 and 28% in 2005).
Of all the University leadership categories, the position of Dean of Faculty is singular in its achievement of gender parity, and it continues a consistent longitudinal trend in gender equity performance. In 2009, five of the ten Deans of Faculty[3] were women.
Women were also well represented in leadership roles in the portfolios of Research and Innovation and of Education: two of the three Pro Vice-Chancellors are women, as are eight of the 14 academic directors. At 34.4%, the proportion of academic women in UWA leadership roles is on a par with their representation overall (39.3% of academic staff) and in the Teaching and Learning ‘feeder’ category (34.8) specifically.
The consistent trend of poor representation of women (16%) in the ‘Heads of School’ category continues. This represents a significant concern, not only because it is a feeder category for more senior levels of academic leadership such as Dean and Pro Vice-Chancellor, but also because women are chosing not to take on the role.
Women have now consolidated their positions in Faculty management, with female School and Faculty Managers static at 60% and 75% respectively. There is a danger now of these positions being considered ‘feminised occupations’. Strategies to attract more men into these roles need to be considered should these numbers increase any further.